


substitution

by AnnaofAza



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Kuron does not want to be the replacement goldfish for Shiro, M/M, Post-Canon, imposter syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 12:56:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20064382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: Keith wants Shiro. He doesn't want to be Shiro.





	substitution

_Be grateful,_ they said when they loaded him up into a machine and filled his days with tests and needles. _Be grateful,_ they said when they allowed him into the Garrison on a probationary period until he became theirs. Be grateful, they said when they replaced his arm and made it into a weapon. _Be grateful, _they said when he was alive again and again and again but no longer whole. 

He saw Keith in himself: _ be grateful, be grateful, be grateful. _ For this cheap food, for this house we’ve allowed you to live in, for the meager money we spend on you to keep you alive. He didn't want to owe anyone, to be beholden, because taking kindness or gifts or anything demanded repayment. A reluctant thank you. A scrape and a bow. 

Perhaps that's why he gravitated towards Keith. Being called a lost cause, albeit for different reasons. Being underestimated and cut down, even when your accomplishments shone. Being scrappy and having to work ten times as hard to get half the recognition. 

But, he now thinks, they came out a different way. He thinks of a dog-eared book Adam used to read, squinting away from the light of Shiro’s datapad, two sisters who turned out the opposite: one optimistic, one pessimistic; one ready to change the world, one who refused to unless pushed; one who rose, one fell--there was a metaphor, somewhere, about bread baking in the oven. 

The Golden Boy and...the discipline case. Now, reversed. 

It's easy, he thinks, to be bitter in this life. He's an experiment. A loose end. Not even an original.

He sees it when Keith invites him to his bed. He knows that when Keith touches him, he's not touching _ him _; he's touching a man who didn't choose him and never looked back.

He tries to make it work. After all, he has the same memories (at least, the ones planted in his head of Arizona, of Kerberos, of Voltron, before they found him floating in the depths of space). The same DNA (_everyone is unique_, he remembers his high school teachers saying, because of the coding that was smaller than a dust mote and swirled like a hurricane). The same face and name as the Golden Boy, the Champion, the Black Paladin, the Admiral of the IGF Atlas, Takashi Shirogane (a file that names him but stamped in small letters: a notification that he is a clone. A duplicate. Not technically a person in his own right.)

He can get a job at the Garrison, with his knowledge, but there's no trust, no vouching, no welcome baskets. He wants to, if only to rub Shiro’s nose in it—he's seen the man skulk around uncertainly, like a man with sea legs stumbling onto land for the first time in decades, retirement an uncertain luxury. 

But in the end, he has no purpose. No life, really—just retreads. He talks to people who he knows secondhand, making sure they see his dark hair and lack of a giant, floating arm first beforehand. He wanders the Garrison and its surrounding grounds, pops into labs and classrooms, and takes long, solitary hoverbikes rides in the desert. He kisses Keith, trying to make him forget for a while (there can never be full convincing) that there’s an imposter in his bed. 

They say this: Be grateful for this second chance, this new start, this impossible reboot. Be grateful for a love that’s not really yours.

He doesn't want to prove anything anymore. 

The Garrison won’t notice a stray ship until morning. It’s easy to slip out from under the sheets, not even having to lift Keith’s arm, and grab the packed bag under the bed, running like the Furies are after him all the way to the yard. 

The stars were Shiro’s escape. Were once Keith’s.

But this time, it's his. 


End file.
